Biohythane production from food waste in a two-stage process: assessing the energy recovery potential

ABSTRACTBiohythane (hydrogen + methane) production in a two stage dark fermentation (DF) and anaerobic digestion (AD) process from food waste (FW) has been studied. This paper investigated the effect of operation temperature, i.e. mesophilic (34 °C) and thermophilic (55 °C) , on biohythane yield and total energy recovery carried out at the initial culture pH 5.5 and pH 7, respectively for DF and AD batch tests. The mesophilic DF tests gave a higher hydrogen yield of 53.5 ($$4) mL H₂/g VS added compared to thermophilic DF tests, i.e. 37.6 ($$1) mL H₂/g VS added. However, higher methane yields, i.e. 307.5 ($$ 10) mL CH₄/g VS, were obtained at thermophilic AD tests compared to mesophilic AD, i.e. 276.5 ($$4.3) mL CH₄/g VS. The total energy recovery from thermophilic DF + AD was higher (11.4 MJ/kg VS) than the mesophilic (10.4 MJ/kg VS) combined process. Interestingly, the analysis of kinetic parameters of mesophilic tests, determined from the Modified Gompertz equation, showed that mesophilic DF had faster H₂ production kinetics, which can be attributed to a faster adaptation of the heat-shocked inoculum used in the tests to the incubation temperature. However, thermophilic AD tests exhibited faster kinetics for methane production.